


Hope Hurts

by Phoenicia



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenicia/pseuds/Phoenicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So what happened after Rin said he would wait for Sousuke?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope Hurts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BakaPandy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakaPandy/gifts).



> You ever have a moment where you see a piece of fanart and your brain says "oh god I must write something immediately!"? Yeah, it happened today. I just had to bang out a companion piece for [this beautiful drawing](http://bakapandy.tumblr.com/post/134230842453/well-get-through-this-together-sousuke-dont) by BakaPandy. Thanks for being inspirational and for doing so much to spread the SouRin love!

Their conversation by the pool still echoes in his head, Rin’s fervent “I’ll wait for you” seeping into skin and soul. It drowns out the elevator music as he rides up to the fifth floor, to the office with the kanji for ‘orthopedic surgeon’ where his MRI results and prognosis await.

Sousuke takes a breath of Rin’s hope and walks in.

* * *

Most everything in room 201 is packed, a few cardboard boxes of books on the floor and two open suitcases on the bottom bunk. Rin folds the last of the laundry and tucks things into each one. Sousuke had an appointment so Rin volunteered to finish the packing for them. The graduation ceremony is tomorrow and a pair of Samezuka white uniforms hang together on the closet door to be worn one last time. And if Rin has secret plans for his second button, well, it’s still too early to tip his hand.

The door snicks open, Sousuke slinking inside with hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “Welcome…?” Rin begins, trailing off when Sousuke looks away. He crosses the room in large strides, sitting down at his empty desk. “Sousuke?”

Sousuke doesn’t answer, just turns the chair towards the window and gives the broad expanse of his back to Rin. He clams up when he’s moody, Rin knows, but this seems darker that normal. He didn’t say where he was going that morning, Rin belatedly realizes, only that it was some sort of business. “Do you want to get lunch?” he asks, feeling hesitant for some reason he can’t quite quantify.

Sousuke shakes his head and Rin frowns, eyebrows drawing tight as he stares at Sousuke’s back. Just what is up? It isn’t like Sousuke to turn down food, bottomless stomach that he is. Sousuke’s shoulders move as he breathes in, just enough to jiggle the red border on them in a trembling pattern that Rin knows all too personally.

Sousuke’s…not crying, is he? Cold terror jerks tenterhooks in Rin’s heart and he sprints to the window, casting his silhouette to cover Sousuke’s shame: eyes already red, fighting to hold back their flood, lower lip clamped between teeth to bite off disobedient sobs. “Sousuke…” Rin says, his voice far calmer than his pounding heart feels as he stretches a hand towards him.

Sousuke’s eyes close, a tear sliding in silver trails from each corner. “I saw…the surgeon today. He said…the cuff is shredded. They advise r-repairing it but…” His eyes screw tighter and he inhales convulsively, struggling not to shatter. “It will never be good enough again. _I_  will never be good enough again.” 

Rin slides onto Sousuke’s lap, straddling his legs, and slips his arms around him, one hand delving deep into his short hair. Sousuke shudders, his whole body caught in a hiccup of repressed emotions; Rin squeezes him tighter and the dam breaks, he’s holding to Rin like a drowning man to driftwood, taking the breath and the strength from him. “I…thought I was okay. I wasn’t lying…w-when I said that m-my dream already came true. I thought I could give up and go on and…and be _happy_  but…”

“But?” Rin gently prompts.

“But…you said you’d wait for me…and I started hoping again…” Sousuke roots himself in closer against Rin, as if he means to never come out. “…hope _hurts_ , Rin…”

“Idiot.” Rin’s own throat feels closed with emotion, but he grits the endearment out. “Did I say I was waiting for you to swim?” Tears trickle down his face, because there’s no way this isn’t at least 78% his fault and it’s _unforgivable_  to have hurt Sousuke this way just because he’s too much of a coward to come out and say ‘I want you to come with me’ in plain words. For all the time spent in Australia he’s still Japanese in his heart.

Shame scorching across his face, Rin pulls back just enough to take Sousuke’s face in his hands, to thumb at the corners of his ocean eyes. “I owe you more apologies than I can count because I didn’t say things right to you. I made you think something I shouldn’t, and I’m sorry. Whole, broken, or anywhere in between, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re you and…and we’re together.” His color deepens but this time from romantic embarrassment.

Rin sniffs, hard, lassoing his own emotions at the unchecked vulnerability before him. Sousuke’s eyelashes are wet, his eyes pink and puffy, and he has never looked more _beautiful_  to Rin. “Will having the surgery give you back some of your mobility? And get you out of constant pain?” Mutely, Sousuke nods, sniffling. “Then we’ll get through this together, Sousuke. Don’t cry, I’m supposed to be the crybaby, remember?” 

That startles a tiny bark of a laugh from Sousuke; much better than a sob, Rin thinks. “I don’t have to report in Australia until July, and I can train here until then. If…you don’t mind having someone to do things for you and bully you to go to physical therapy, that is,” he’s quick to amend, rubbing the back of his neck. “I…I got a sponsor, and all my living expenses in Australia are going to be covered and then some. So I could support you..for a while, if you wanted to finish out your rehab on a student visa? You…could cook for me, maybe?” _For the rest of my life?_  Rin adds in the privacy of his own thoughts.

“…did you just ask me to marry you in the most old-fashioned romantic loser way possible?” Sousuke’s voice is teasing, but there’s something faint and fragile in his eyes.

“…yeah.” Rin can’t take the chance that tiny spark might shatter, so he tempers any hotheaded reaction, smothering it in the cottony warmth inside his chest. “I guess I did.”

Hope hurts, but it also heals.

**Author's Note:**

> Rin, you wibbly romantic, you. Just how romantic can he be in such a short fic?
> 
> \--he's planning to give his second button to Sousuke and to ask for his. That's the one closest to the heart, so Japanese girls want to get that button from the boy they like at graduation.  
> \--yes, that is something of a Japanese marriage proposal. Saying things indirectly is very Japanese, so saying that you want to eat someone's cooking for the rest of your life is a pretty strong declaration. (Also, yes, sort of old-fashioned, but it hits the romance buttons.)


End file.
